Do tax breaks for the rich improve the economy and create jobs? A nonpartisan study says no!

The New York Times reported on Thursday that Senate Republicans applied pressure to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service (CRS) in September, successfully persuading it to withdraw a report finding that lowering marginal tax rates for the wealthiest Americans had no effect on economic growth or job creation.

“The pressure applied to the research service comes amid a broader Republican effort to raise questions about research and statistics that were once trusted as nonpartisan and apolitical,” the Times reported. Democrats in Congress, however, have resurfaced the report and published it in full.

Republicans told the Times they had issues with the tone, wording and scope of the report, but they clearly objected most strongly to its findings, which undermine the governing fiscal philosophy of the party, that tax cuts for the wealthy will spur growth and benefit everybody.

GOP officials told The Times that the decision by the CRS came after a cooperative discussion, but Democrats have suggested that the move is part of a broader effort by Republicans to squelch legitimate research that runs counter to their economic principles.

Ha! Ha! Ha! Do you write comedy doc. That’s funny. You’re right he spent wildly. But he didn’t have a good economy. He had to do 2 tax cuts to try to spur the economy. Those only worked for a short time and the economy continued its decline. Besides everything looks fine when you put it on the credit card. Then when the bill comes, the good times are over. That happened just when Obama was elected. Those tax cuts and GWB wild spending came due. Those tax cuts and his wild spending continue to add to the deficit. Obama had to continue those tax cuts to get the economy out of the ditch GWB put it in.
Unemployment was 7.8% when GWB left office. Doesn’t sound like a good economy to me.

Coincidentally, the hospital where I am working today just announced major shakeups directly related to the ACA. Employee pension contributions were halted. None of the employees will receive COLA this year and multiple positions were eliminated.

Reagan was forced to raise taxes because his tax cuts couldn’t brake even. Like Reagan Bush’s tax cuts along with his misadventure in Iraq caused the economy to spiral out of control. All facts the Republicans can’t seem to accept.

The article I linked has examples and a study which shows how many jobs have been lost because of the looming fiscal cliff. (FYI it is double what have been created in the entire 4 years of the Obama administration.)

The specifics on the ACA are this:

Today, I am working at a smaller hospital (about 100 beds) that has a high population of governmental patients (Medicare/Medicaid). The administration has calculated that they stand to lose 3 million dollars next year due to decreasing reimbursement for these patients. They already run on a very thin margin and need to “right size” their operational/capital budget so that they don’t lose money.

As a result, capital expenditures (new equipment, upgraded equipment etc) have been suspended and multiple HR moves have been made. This includes the changes I mentioned above as well as *gasp* eliminating 10% of their executive overhead either via demotions or eliminations of positions.

Fortunately, there has been no change (that I am aware of) that will directly limit access of patients to care, i.e. no programs or services have been eliminated.

The changes may make care less convenient or less cutting edge and certainly the front line employees may be less cheery about coming to work, but given all the changes that are coming down the pike, that’s the way things are going to go, whether we like it or not.

-It is gut level common sense that if you take away money from a business (increase taxes or decrease revenue) the business will either have to decrease overhead or increase prices. In a non health care business you can raise prices to increase revenue. In a health care business you can try to do that too and in the past hospitals have done that to great success by shifting costs to non-governmental payers.

However governmental payers (and to an ever increasing extent commercial insurance payers) do not allow that. If you want to stay viable you must cut overhead.

This is a rural hospital. It is the only hospital in town and it takes care of the patients who come through the doors.

-Reimbursement will decrease 3 million actual dollars next year.

-The big business and medicare discussions are separate. Read my initial link if you want to about how the threat of the fiscal cliff has cost us 1 million jobs, but don’t comment on it if you haven’t read it.

Let’s all shed a tear for doc and his hospital that is losing money. Now let’s compare that to HCA (Hospital Corporation of America), whose biggest shareholder is none other than Bain Capital. Bain Capital owned HCA before it went public. HCA’s earnings are up 500% for the 3rd quarter. For the first nine months this year profits are $1.29 billion. Not hardly a money losing company. In 2002 HCA lost a $2 billion settlement to the government for Medicare fraud. They now have a pending lawsuit for price fixing. That has been conveniently been put off until next year, so there wouldn’t be a connection to Romney before the election. Romney is no longer connected to Bain, but HCA is using the policies of Bain, which were put in place when Romney was with Bain.

Do you understand why medical care and health insurance premiums are going through the roof? The ACA will restrict health insurance companies to 20% profit.